Jeaniene Frost - One Grave at a Time

Bones and I sat in the two folding chairs opposite a desk that had duct tape wrapped around one corner. Tyler pulled a comfier-looking chair out from behind the desk to sit closer to us.

“Sorry for the surroundings,” he said, still in that same cheery way. “Have to make it pretty in front for customers, but that means skimping back here where it’s just me and Dexter.”

At that, a white-and-tan dog with rolls of flesh decorating his shoulders and a face that looked perpetually smashed came out from underneath the desk.

“Aww, who’s Daddy’s little baby?” Tyler cooed, patting his lap.

More nasally grunts ensued, sounding joyous this time, before the bundle of flesh and fur landed on Tyler’s lap hard enough to elicit an “oof” from the medium.

“Baby needs to lay off the burgers or he’ll break daddy’s hip one day,” Tyler continued in the same singsong manner.

I tended to agree. With his leanness and Dexter’s size, the dog had to be about a third of his master’s weight. The medium didn’t seem to mind, though. He beamed at Bones and me.

“Isn’t he gorgeous?”

With those rolls, the wet-sounding grunts, bulbous wiggly tail, and smashed face—not to mention the fart the dog let out once he situated himself—he was gorgeous in a way that only a parent could appreciate. But the open joy in Dexter’s furry countenance as I stuck my hand out to pet him made me forget his less-than-aesthetic qualities.

“Who’s a good, pretty boy?” I asked, scratching Dexter’s ears and getting my wrist thoroughly licked in the process. The dog shuddered in delight, barely staying on Tyler’s lap as he shifted to get closer.

“You have a friend forever now, sweetie,” Tyler said, gripping Dexter more firmly so the dog didn’t topple over. “So tell me, what sort of haunting are the two of you experiencing?”

“We’re looking for someone who can summon and kill a ghost,” Bones stated.

Tyler’s brows went up, and some of that flirtatious sparkle left his gaze. “Why?” he asked bluntly.

I pulled out my iPad, a few taps bringing up the text of the Malleus Maleficarum. Then I held it up so Tyler could see it.

“Because the asshole who wrote this came back after he died,” I replied. “And he’s found a way to keep murdering people.”

Tyler took the tablet from me with one hand while the other still held the dog. Somehow he managed to brace it against a knee and scroll down through the pages without dislodging Dexter from his perch. Great, a crazy couple, ran through Tyler’s mind as he read some of the text. They actually think they’ve got the ghost of an infamous witch hunter haunting their house!

Bones leaned forward, his smile showing the tips of his fangs. “We’re not crazy, and this sod isn’t haunting our anything.”

Tyler’s head whipped up, his expression changing as he spotted the new pointy canines in Bones’s teeth and realized he hadn’t said that last sentence out loud.

“Oh,” he said at last. “Sorry. My friends didn’t mention certain . . . details about you, and you wouldn’t believe how nutty some people are. Just last week, I had a woman convinced her trailer was haunted by Tupac, as if he’d want to spend eternity in a double wide that smelled like cat piss.”

That made my lips twitch, but Bones stayed on topic. “Now that we’ve cleared up the issue of our sanity, let’s move on to our query.”

Tyler gently shooed Dexter from his lap with a “Daddy’s got to work” explanation that nevertheless drew a whine before Dexter went under the desk again. A loud exhalation, like a sigh, preceded the sound of the dog’s plopping down on something soft. Spoiled rotten, I noted in amusement, but that only raised my opinion of Tyler. Kindness toward the voiceless or the vulnerable, like animals and children, usually denoted good character in a person.

“How do you know you’re dealing with the shade of Heinrich Kramer and that he’s able to kill people?” Tyler asked, all business now.

“Ghostly informant,” Bones replied.

Tyler nodded as if that response wasn’t unusual. “Is that the only confirmation? Ghosts lie sometimes.”

The glance Bones cast my way said he’d considered this possibility. “All we have is the ghost’s word.”

Tyler gave both of us an unblinking look. “I can’t kill a ghost, but I know some people who might be able to. Before I give you their names and put in a good word for you, I need to make sure I’m not setting up an innocent person.”

I doubted that Elisabeth had made all this up, but I’d been lied to convincingly before. Just because she seemed nice and Fabian had a crush on her didn’t mean we should blindly trust a virtual stranger when we had the chance to confirm the facts for ourselves. I exchanged a long, wordless look with Bones. We could green-eye the information out of Tyler, but from the brush of his emotions, Bones also wanted further corroboration on the identity of the ghost Elisabeth had sent us after.

“If you have a way to make sure that what we’ve been told is true, do it,” I told him.

Tyler stood, brushing Dexter’s hair from his pants. “All right,” he said, his tone chipper once more. “Time to talk to the dead.”

Istared at the cardboard box Tyler returned with.

“A Ouija board? That’s how you intend to prove we’re dealing with a murderous Heinrich Kramer instead of Casper the Friendly Ghost?”

If this was his method of identity verification, five bucks said Tyler’s idea to dispatch Kramer would involve playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board.” Or calling forth Bloody Mary from a mirror to send her after the witch hunter.

“When used properly, Ouija boards open doors to the other side,” Tyler replied, setting the box on his desk. “All we have to do is knock on the right one.”

He began to clear things off to make room, humming the whole time. I looked at Bones, surprised he hadn’t offered an instant objection to this tactic, but all he did was tap his chin thoughtfully.

“Spade said his demonologist mates spoke highly of Tyler, so we’ll trust that he knows what tools to work with.”

Or Spade is just paying us back for exposing Denise to what he considered “dangerous circumstances” recently , I added, but didn’t say out loud. Might as well see where this led us, though a session with a Ouija board in a flower shop was hardly the way I imagined we’d summon a potentially evil spirit. Holding a séance in a graveyard at midnight with some ancient relics seemed far more appropriate.

Tyler had the board opened up on the desk, its symbols looking more hokey than supernatural, heart-shaped planchette pushed to the side. Then he disappeared into the main part of the shop before returning with some fragrant potted plants and a box of matches.

“All right, ready,” Tyler declared, giving us both an appraising glance. “Bones is a vampire, and I’m guessing you are, too, but who’s more powerful?”

“She is,” Bones replied at once.

I was about to argue since Bones was a damn sight stronger and faster than me, plus had centuries more fighting experience; but with a start, I realized he was right. With Marie Laveau’s control over the grave still residing in my body, I was more powerful than even most Masters.

Until that borrowed power wore off, anyway.

I cleared my throat, feeling a stab of uneasiness as I realized for the first time in our relationship, I ranked higher than Bones ability-wise—and he knew it.

“Are you okay with that?” I blurted, forgetting for a moment that we had an audience. Bones had never been the insecure type, but an abrupt shift in a couple’s dynamic had caused rifts in lots of relationships before ours.